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Tuesday, 26 March 2013

TWEWY and AKBT: Sister games

Owing to my recent excursion, I'm left
in a Toukyou state of mind. And you know what two games take place in
Toukyou, and kept appearing in my mind while I was there? You do, if
you read the posts. The answer is The World Ends with You
(素晴らしきこの世界、
“What a
Wonderful World,” in Japanese) and AKIBA'S TRIP. The former takes
place in the fashion mecca of Shibuya, the latter in the geek
paradise of Akihabara.

These games are hardly the only ones to
take place in contemporary Toukyou (Jet Set Radio, Ryuu ga Gotoku,
and Megami Tensei come to mind), but I have a few reasons for
singling out this particular pair. Both are action-RPGs. Both feature
fantastic stories taking place amongst their interesting, but
comparatively mundane settings. Both were highly experimental titles
with a lot of intriguing ideas. Both are single-installment games
that debuted within the same console generation, on directly
competing portable platforms, no less (the DS and PSP, respectively),
with each taking advantage of that system's particular strengths. And
finally, rather than taking the entire megacity as a basis, both
games focus in on one specific area, lavishing it with an affection
and attention to detail I haven't ever really seen anywhere else.

In TWEWY, you control two characters at
once – one on each screen. The bottom screen is reserved for
protagonist Neku, who attacks with a wide variety of
touch-screen-driven psychic abilities, while his partner does the
same on the top screen per commands from the D-pad. All enemies
appear in both iterations of the battlefield; they share a lifebar
with their alt-world counterpart, as does Neku with his partner, thus
requiring cooperation (ie coordinated multi-tasking from you) to
bring your enemies down. This aspect is further emphasized through
the Puck, a green aura that gets passed between screens if you keep
up a good offensive rhythm. The Puck confers an attack bonus on the
character holding it, and it grows in power with each pass, but
dissipates if you mess up. This means you have to be able to keep up
a continuous assault with one character while not neglecting the
other, lest they be overwhelmed. Moreover, if you fill up a special
metre, you can unleash a Fusion attack, in which the pair combine
forces to mete out heavy damage to all enemies at once. Neku's
available attacks are governed by a slate of Pins – as in, like,
the metal things that you attach to your shirt to show your political
allegiance or whatever. Depending on what you have equipped, you
might find yourself pressing an enemy to fire a blast of energy at
it, slashing empty space to summon spiked chains, tapping a Pin
itself for a quick round of healing, or blowing into the DS mic to
have Neku breathe fire. Each Pin has an associated cooldown time,
preventing you from merely spamming your strongest attacks, and each
one also levels up individually, becoming more powerful or even
gaining new properties.

The battle system in Akiba's Trip is
less innovative, but based on just as good a concept. Your enemies,
the Kageyashi, are basically a clan of hidden vampires, and thus
extremely vulnerable to sunlight. Accordingly, in order to defeat
them you must rob them of their clothes. The initial stages of any
given encounter start out in fairly standard beat-em-up territory,
but rather than injure your enemies themselves, it's their clothing
you target. Each article – pants/skirt, shirt, and sometimes also
some type of headgear – has its own health bar, and once that's
been depleted, you'll get a Strip Chance. If your opponent doesn't
manage to repel you, you'll rip their clothes clean off their bodies.
Once they've been reduced to just their socks and underwear, their
exposed bodies can no longer handle the exertion and they slowly burn
to death. If you've sufficiently damaged a number of nearby enemies,
you can chain together Strip Chances, moving smoothly from target to
target like a whirling dervish amongst a storm of steadily increasing
nudity. But beware: As a Kageyashi yourself, you too may find
yourself on the receiving end of a lascivious onslaught. You'll need
to equip yourself with the right combination of clothing, some of
which confer situational bonuses, and arm yourself with the weapons
at your disposal, which range from everyday items, like a student's
bag or a rolled-up poster, right on up to a mythical sword.

Both games have surprisingly strong
plots. TWEWY can be pretty overwrought at times, while AKBT is
intentionally silly-serious. The former puts you in the shoes of a
grimly cocky loner forced to participate in the Shinigami Game. This
a strictly partner-oriented affair, predictably setting him down the
gradual path of friendship and mutual respect. He and his new
partner, Shiki, quickly realise that all the participants in the
Shinigami Game are dead, competing to see which team will win a
second shot at life. Each day presents a set of goals to achieve and
challenges to overcome, but the teams are also harried by the Noise –
the psychic manifestations of peoples' negative emotions, normally
incorporeal but nightmarishly immediate in the realm the players now
inhabit – as well as the meddling of the Shinigami charged with
running the game.

AKBT is no more rooted in reality. As
the Kageyashi require human blood as sustenance, often killing their
prey in the process, the anti-Kageyashi organization NIRO has been
formed to deal with the threat. The nameless protagonist nearly meets
his end to a Kageyashi attack in a back alley, but his attacker's
sister, who disagrees with the general Kageyashi ethos, saves him
with a kiss, transferring some of her own blood to him and beginning
his transformation into a Kageyashi himself. NIRO picks him up and
recruits him into their investigative group, formed largely of locals
with deep resources inside the area and strong knowledge of its
culture. You set out to begin the long process of putting down a
burgeoning Kageyashi rebellion, but as you encounter less militant
members you learn that NIRO's perspective may not be the whole truth.
In the end, you will have to choose whether to support NIRO and wipe
out the Kageyashi, turn over to the rebellion and help them dismantle
NIRO, or take a third option and try to pursue peaceful coexistence
between humans and Kageyashi.

And all of that is awesome, but those
things alone are not what make these two games special. It's that the
interplay of plot and mechanics with ambient setting is so masterful
and compelling in both cases. They don't merely take place in their
respective districts, but are fixated
on them. They outright state that there's something special about
them, not only in being supernatural nexii, but also in the sense
that they're epicentres of humanity and subculture. They go pretty
far to have us agree with them, too, drawing out their essences and
painting the whole experience with them.

Y'all know I'm a
Kansai guy, so this is hardly my area of expertise. But as far as I
can tell, the geographical accuracy is admirable, especially in AKBT,
for which people have compared screenshots from gameplay to their
Akihabara counterparts, with stunning results. Locations like the
Sega Building and back alleys are artfully recreated. TWEWY is no
slouch either, recreating basically all of Shibuya's landmarks – no
small feat for an area of that size – with incredible fidelity,
giving us such sights as HMV, 109, Hachiko, and Scramble Crossing.
The director said in an interview that you could probably use the
game as a guidebook for the area; I don't doubt it. Same goes for
AKBT. Much as GTA IV taught me the basic geography of New York (minus
Staten Island), these two games showed me how their areas were laid
out. All three make their subjects seem like the most exciting place
in the world.

That's
not even the coolest part. What really keeps me thinking about these
two titles, even years after playing them, is the way that they
nailed the atmosphere. Everything just feels
right. There's thorough research, and then there's stuff you can only
transmit through a love of the subject. The game worlds feel
inhabited and active; when you meet new people, you believe that they
really do live in the area. They dress, speak, and think believably,
insofar as they are still fictional. And finally, both TWEWY and AKBT
make the best possible use of local culture. AKBT has it easy, of
course, with its focus on otakuland, but it doesn't rest on its
laurels. In-game anime starring a schoolgirl who transforms into a
defender of justice when she removes her glasses; supermarketed,
oversexed, ravenously popular teen idols; maid cafes where you can
play stupid games to win prizes; the only thing it's missing is video
games, but then, it is one.
TWEWY is a little less obvious, but the fashion and musical
influences are clear, especially the latter. How many other games can
you name with battle music like this?

Interestingly, both contain elements of
eating and shopping, each of which makes perfect sense, and yet they
both focus on one more than the other. AKBT treats food items as mere
powerups and healing items, which is fine, but TWEWY tries something
new by limiting the amount of stat-increasing ramen and burgers that
characters are allowed to eat within one real-world day. TWEWY also
uses regular clothing where a mediaevel world would armour, while
AKBT can be basically one long cosplay sim if you want it to be,
complete with a little sister to wear any clothes you want in
exchange for money. Uh, that basically speaks for itself, so I will
append no further commentary.

With all of this in mind, is it really
possible to say which game is “better?” Well, yes, actually.
TWEWY is better. It has cleaner controls, a more engaging battle
system, a more compelling narrative, and, although the PSP obviously
has far greater processing power, AKBT's 3D graphics are blocky and
saturated, making TWEWY's atypical style the aesthetic winner as
well. And let's not even get started on the music, because I could do
a whole series of posts on just that. Basically, TWEWY is superior in
absolutely every way. Just wanted to get that out there. But AKBT still
left a good taste in my mouth when I was done with it, especially as
the best parts of the game are towards the middle and end. They're
both great games.

So please, Square Enix and Acquire. No
sequels. Some things are better left as once-in-a-lifetime
experiences. Also, know what's fun? Imagining that TWEWY and AKBT
take place within the same universe.

About Me

I've been studying Japanese language and culture since 2004 and have twice studied abroad to Kyouto. Veterans can enjoy my pratfalls, and newcomers should be able to gain some insight into life here. Maybe.